Hi Dominic, On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 04:36:11PM +0100, Dominic Rodriguez wrote: > I prefer Andy's idea - Yeah I understand of the costs but even so I think > we should be able to pay what we want to a minimum.
Just to clarify, that is not my idea, just the way that most established hackspaces I am aware of work.. :) When London Hackspace first proposed offering their full facilities to those paying only £5/month, I was initially quite vocally opposed as Hackspace Foundation Ltd at the time was running at a deficit and would have been bankrupt in ~5 months. I felt they should be only offering the most basic things at £5, and demanding the full £20 at least for everything. However, I was very pleased to be proven totally wrong - the increased buzz about the new space brought in new members and they were very soon able to expand into the neighbouring unit. The £5 minimum proved to be a good move to bring in new members. On the other hand, you have to appreciate that getting something like this off the ground is really hard - LH had been going a few years before they got their existing decent premises. They used to meet in a pub basement, and then got free access to a drafty loft elsewhere. For all that time they weren't taking subscriptions, only donations. At the start they relied on a few members paying well over the average, in order to get things kickstarted. And (a lot like a LUG I suppose) it will always need a few people putting in way more effort than everyone else to keep it going. So at the start it probably is going to need a few very dedicated people willing to "subscribe" to something that doesn't really yet exist and put in a lot of time, in order to bring it into existence. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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